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Over the almost 50 years of Saturday Night Live, there have been plenty of seasons that were good (more than most casual observers would like to admit) and bad (some spectacularly so). There was, though, only one 1984: quite possibly the strangest season in the history of the show.
With Eddie Murphy completely gone to pursue his superstar movie career and the second most recognizable cast member, Joe Piscopo, having worn out his welcome after the 1983 - '84 season, executive producer Dick Ebersol was left without a star. The remaining cast members, including a young Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jim Belushi, had never quite fit in with the show and were largely dissatisfied with the way that they had been treated. Many people figured that Murphy leaving would finally signal the death knell for SNL.
Righting a Wrong
Instead of trying to develop another young talent like Murphy, Ebersol turned to more established comedians, including one who had almost been part of the original SNL cast. By 1984, Billy Crystal was already a well known entertainer after his stint on the sitcom Soap and his numerous talk show appearances where he imitated celebrities like boxer Mohammed Ali, but in 1974 Crystal had been cut from the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players on the eve of the show's debut. Why that happened depends largely on who tells the story, but whatever the case, when Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, and Dan Aykroyd rocketed to fame, Crystal wasn’t with them. Nor was he offered the spot that went to Bill Murray when Chase left after the first season. Ten years later, Crystal was finally being given the chance to right what he considered a wrong.
The Rest of the Gang
Along with Crystal, Ebersol brought in Martin Short, who had already been a cast member of Canada's SCTV (which launched the careers of John Candy, Rick Moranis, and Catherine O'Hara), as well as Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer, fresh off their success in This Is Spinal Tap. Rich Hall, who had been part of an ensemble HBO comedy show called Not Necessarily the News, and Pamela Stephenson, who had been on the British precursor (Not the Nine O'clock News) of Hall's HBO show rounded out the new cast members. It was an odd turn of events considering that Crystal hosted SNL twice the season before he joined the cast, while Guest and Shearer had made a guest appearance as part of Spinal Tap.
The Season
Crystal, Short, and Guest wasted little time putting their stamp on the creative vacuum that they walked into. Ebersol was by all accounts a very good network executive, but he was not a comedian and didn’t come from a creative background. By the season opener, Crystal was already doing his Fernando Lamas impression ("You look mah-velous!") and Short had brought his Ed Grimley character with him from SCTV. By the third show, Crystal and Guest had worked up a breakout routine with their characters Willie and Frankie, who would continuously one-up each other with pain-inducing practices ("I hate it when that happens"). The show never missed a chance to exploit the new popular sketches — a hallmark of the Ebersol era — with Crystal doing his Fernando so frequently that the character almost deserved a separate credit in the opening theme.
More than any season before or since, the show relied on pre-taped segments, with Guest, Shearer, and Short preferring to work that way. While it went against the grain of SNL, some of the short films, particularly Shearer and Short playing aspiring male synchronized swimmers and Guest and Crystal portraying aged Negro League baseball stars were as good as anything that the show had produced.
The Oddness
Perhaps the best remembered episode of the season is the one hosted by wrestler Hulk Hogan and Mr. T to promote the first Wrestlemania. In the most famous segment, the pair appears with Crystal on his "Fernando Hideaway" sketch and can't keep a straight face. While Murphy returned to host and the Beatles' Ringo Starr took a turn, the other hosts included figures like Jesse Jackson, Howard Cosell, and Bob Uecker. The first show of the season didn't even have a host.
Additionally, there was little continuity with the show's fake news segment — called "Saturday Night News" instead of "Weekend Update" — with the show's host sometimes doing the anchoring and real newscaster Edwin Newman sitting in once before Guest finally took over midway through the season.
In stark contrast to the hosts, the seasons musical guests were a who's who of mid-80s pop, with acts like The Thompson Twins, Billy Ocean, Bryan Adams, and super-groups The Honey Drippers (featuring Robert Plant), and Power Station (featuring Robert Palmer) all making appearances.
The Aftermath
When an industry-wide writers' strike halted production in early March 1985, the show didn’t return from the forced hiatus. The abbreviated season ended after just 17 episodes. NBC was unhappy with spiraling production costs and Ebersol was unhappy with his creative staff. Shearer had quit the show in January citing creative differences ("I was creative and they were different," he said later). Short and Guest didn't want to keep doing a live show. Louis-Dreyfus and Belushi (along with fellow holdover Mary Gross) had been used so little throughout the season that they wanted out. Crystal, enjoying the biggest success of his career, was seemingly the only one who wanted it to continue.
Ebersol demanded a retooling, wanting to change the format to a completely taped show and with possibly a fixed rotation of guest hosts (his ideas for the rotation included Piscopo and David Letterman). Instead, NBC briefly canceled the show. After rethinking things, the network's executives decided that they would agree to give SNL another chance… if its original creator, Lorne Michaels, would take back over.
Then and Now
Eventually, Michaels agreed to return to the show and retained none of the cast or writers from the previous season. Taking a page from Ebersol's book, Michaels tried to use established actors like Randy Quaid and Anthony Michael Hall (along with Robert Downey Jr. and Joan Cusack) to re-launch the show… which very nearly did lead to the show being canceled permanently. It wasn't until the following season when Michaels entrusted SNL to virtual unknowns like Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Victoria Jackson, Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks, and Dennis Miller that the show started the run that finally established it as the institution it has become.
The goodwill that the show had gained from Crystal, Short and Guest's lone season helped carry it through Michaels' disastrous first season back. Thirty years later, the 1984 - '85 season remains an oddly alluring anomaly in the long comedic history of SNL.

FOX
When The Mindy Project snapped Adam Pally up after the untimely cancellation of Happy Endings, we were totally psyched. But then he languished for a while. Established as an "bro" with one foot still in the frat house, Dr. Peter Prentice was too similar to his Happy Endings character Max to really make an impact on the show.
But as the Mindy and Danny drama is playing out, Peter has stepped up. Danny and Mindy were each other's confidantes up until kissing and other pesky distractions got in the way. Now, not only does Mindy as a character need a friend to help her through the break-up, but the show needs someone structurally to be Mindy's sounding board. And we're loving Peter and Mindy as partners in crime.
Sure, Peter will take Mindy out to bars and cheer her on while she hits on guys. But he'll also make sure she knows that she "deserves someone great." He's got no shame about his low-maintenance hook-ups and proudly celebrates his ETPCs (Eager to Please Chubsters), but, as he teaches Mindy his player ways, he's also becoming self-aware. ("Does everyone think I'm a dick?")
Some of Peter's "bro" teachings are even valid! In "Think Like a Peter," he convinces Mindy that she doesn't owe anything to any of her first dates if she's not interested, no matter how nice they are. And despite her best efforts to ignore his advice, recovering sketchy guy Peter's certainly got the inside scoop on sketchy guy behavior. We've seen the beginnings of some Peter and Mindy "shipping" in corners of the fanbase, but we much prefer these two stay platonic. Though we do agree with Mindy that he did look extremely cute in that little sailor hat.
Is the developing Peter/Mindy friendship helping you weather the Danny/Mindy storm? Let us know in the comments!
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Warner Bros.
It's remarkable how much Veronica Mars feels like coming home again. Ms. Mars has had nearly a decade off from her detective duties, but the character and the series at large saunters right back into form with such a confident swagger, it feels like she never really left at all.
The product of a now infamous Kickstarter campaign, Veronica Mars is the film sequel to the much beloved but scarcely watched CW series that followed the adventures of a teenage private eye. Mars solved mysteries surrounding the seedy denizens of the fictional Neptune California, a beach town where the rich socialites and working class heroes clash quite frequently and often violently. The series was a terrific mix of Nancy Drew and Raymond Chandler, give or take a Buffy, airing for three seasons before being canceled. But thanks to creator Rob Thomas' audacious Kickstarter and a brewing cult of fans, Veronica Mars has been given a second chance at life, a chance that precious few shows receive.
The film picks up with Veronica (Kristen Bell) knocking on 30's door and enjoying a comfortable life in New York City with her long time boyfriend Piz (Chris Lowell). Her youthful gumshoe years are well behind her, but her old life comes back into swing when former flame Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring) is charged with murdering his starlet girlfriend. Veronica tells herself that she only wants to consult a friend, but Neptune's magnetic pull becomes too hard to resist.
The film is a ton of fun. It's still as whip smart as the series ever was, and the quips whiz by effortlessly and constantly... often right over the heads of those who aren't already baptized by the gospel of Veronica. The show quickly falls back into familiar rhythms, and the nine years away haven't dulled the character's verbal barbs. Prepare to be bathed in waves of wit. Even outside of the near-relentless banter, the show maintains a nice and heavy sense of tension when the mystery sets in, and things get serious. While the actual mystery itself is far from brilliant, it's still engaging enough to entertain. In any case, the main course here is the characters, and they are as stellar as ever. Keith Mars (the fantastic Enrico Colantoni) is still the easy frontrunner for dad of the millennium.
Warner Bros.
The most remarkable thing about the film is how much it feels like the Veronica Mars of old, and that's the best compliment we can pay it. The returning cast members slip into their old roles with so much ease, and the film never feels like it's straining to regain that old Neptune spark. It turns out that watching a near 30 Veronica is just as much fun as watching the sleuth in her teenage years. And the fact that the show's general formula doesn't feel out of place now that we're following a load of late 20-somethings instead of high schoolers probably says something about how smartly and strongly crafted the original show was in the first place.
Rob Thomas clearly isn't trying to broaden his formula to catch new fans, and it doesn't make sense that he'd do so anyway. This is clearly a film built from the ground up for Veronica Mars fans, as it should be. A hefty intro montage at the beginning tries its best to get newcomers caught up on the three seasons of the television show, but if you didn't spend at least a couple hours cruising along the seedy streets of Neptune all those years ago, some of the film's charm might be lost on you.
The Veronica Mars film, at its core, is basically a damned good two hour episode of the original series. Now, that's not exactly ambitious, but the fans that put down their hard earned money to fund the film weren't necessarily paying for ambition. What we have here is unquestionably and purely Veronica Mars. So self-assured and comfortable in it's own celluloid skin, it's a film that dutifully embraces everything that made that series so brilliant and fun in the first place. Welcome home, Veronica, it's been a while.
4/5
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You know you like science fiction. You know you like Matt Damon. And you know you're on board with anything that showcases a handsome bald fella. So yes, you're pretty certain you're going to enjoy Neill Blomkamp's newest feature film, Elysium. There's only one thing you're not quite sure about: what the heck "Elysium" actually is.
The movie lends the name — one you might have heard before — to an exclusive utopia floating just beyond the reach of a decaying planet Earth's common man. The titular space station that plays paradisiacal home to political figures, law enforcement officers, and your everyday rich people, denying the benefits of pristine environments and universal healthcare to the working class schmoes confined to the big blue marble. Enter Max (Damon), a reformed criminal inflicted with a lethal dose of radiation poisoning, who vows to snag a spot in one of Elysium's venerated medical facilities before succumbing to his disease. But in order to get there, he'll need to sneak in — courtesy of a border-hopping underground organization led by a crook named, quite appropriately, Spider. And of course, when you ask a favor of a crook, you're bound to find yourself carrying out one or two illicit deeds in the process.
But hospice on Elysium is worth anything for Max. The proverbial "castle in the clouds" seems to represent all of the ideals to which humanity might aspire: safety, prosperity, uniformity, total submission... yeah, it's starting to get a little iffy there, isn't it? Although Elysium is stocked lovingly with the tropes of science-fiction movie classics — everything from pulp works like Total Recall to mainstream blockbusters like Star Wars to uncategorizable masterpieces like 2001: A Space Odyssey — the film is also clearly quite happy to emulate classic literature. In fact, Blomkamp's Elysium takes its name from one of the greatest and most well-known pieces of writing in human history: Homer's Odyssey.
Homer invented the Elysian plain, a temperate kingdom where mankind knew no trouble. In his epic poem, Homer described the mythical land as that "where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor heavy storm, nor ever rain, but ever does Ocean send up blasts of the shrill-blowing West Wind that they may give cooling to men." In a word, paradise.
In fact, so potent is the idea of Elysium as a flawless utopia that many classic minds examined it in their own writings: Greek historian Plutarch and Roman poet Virgil were among those to embed the facet into their work. And centuries past Homer's invention of the golden empire, popular culture keeps a stronghold on Elysium as its go-to heaven-on-Earth: fantasy television shows like Doctor Who, Xena Warrior Princess, and Sailor Moon have welcomed references to Elysium, as have movies like the historical fiction epic Gladiator, the comedy Wanderlust, and the spirited extended metaphor Beasts of the Southern Wild.
But instead of recreating the impeccable Elysium developed by Homer, director Blomkamp seems to draw a bit more directly from some more recent works: the novels of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley will jump to mind in the inspection of the rigidly controlled autocracy kept under glass by military figure Delacourt (Jodie Foster). The flawless sheath drawn over a scathing, fear-generated xenophobia is a staple of sci-fi fiction, with 1984 and Brave New World playing generous benefactors to this eager and inventive new twist on the genre.
We see a lot of "new" in Blomkamp's Elysium, though plenty of fun and familiar homages to Orwell and Huxley, to Philip K. Dick and the many cinematic attempts that have been made of his library, to Star Wars and Kubrick, and to Homer. The "perfect world," the heavenly kingdom just out of reach, is something that artists and scholars have dwelled upon for centuries. But Blomkamp proves that there are always new, fresh ways of looking at time-tested ideas.
Follow Michael Arbeiter on Twitter @MichaelArbeiter | Follow hollywood.com on Twitter @hollywood_com
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What's your damage, Lindsay Lohan?
LiLo appears to give that question an answer as disaffected, super-mascaraed socialite Tara in Paul Schrader's epic fizzle of a film The Canyons: her damage is something to be exploited for drama (certainly by Lohan herself) as if she were a kind of latter-day female Dennis Hopper. The only problem is that she doesn’t possess any of Hopper's jittery, live-wire spark, his inventory of manic quirks. What you get from Lohan in The Canyons is energy-sapped ennui that looks like a bad parody of an Antonioni movie starring people who've never actually watched an Antonioni movie. There's no train-wreck appeal in seeing The Canyons. Only boredom and the dawning of a final realization that our inexplicably enduring interest in Lohan far surpasses her actual talent.
Schrader, and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho), make their agenda in The Canyons clear in its title. It's the topographical and moral opposite of The Hills. The MTV show was glammed-up meaninglessness about hot young things buying stuff and getting into petty squabbles. The Canyons also focuses on hot young things (one of them, James Deen, a real-life porn star!), but to reveal the dark, even psychotic, moral decay at the center of their lives.
Deen's Christian is another of Ellis' sociopathic twentysomething trust-fund brats — Patrick Bateman with a smartphone. He films himself and others having sex with his girlfriend Tara (Lohan), who he plans to cast opposite a naïve Hollywood newcomer named Ryan (Nolan Gerard Funk) in a movie he's about to start shooting. He's young, rich, and has nothing better to do, so why not make a movie? Who cares if he has no idea how to make one?
On the side, Christian keeps another bed partner, Gina (Amanda Brooks), who he has sex with but violently refuses to kiss. Like everything in the movie, Schrader and Ellis' ideas are abundantly clear and on the surface: Christian wants instant gratification but not intimacy, and it's hard not to see him as their shallow commentary on the millennial generation as a whole. Schrader deploys a dizzying array of distancing devices to keep us at bay, including the projection of neon lights on Deen, Lohan, and Funk's nubile bodies during a group sex scene that has "Razzie Nomination" written all over it.
The web of trysts between these four characters is pretty complex, and on the surface it seems none of the characters possess any emotional investment in their hook-ups. But, of course, they really do. Like the characters in one of Schrader's favorite movies, Jean Renoir’s masterpiece The Rules of the Game, they've actively tried — and failed — to deaden themselves emotionally in order to deal with the meaninglessness of their lives. Finally, an eruption of violence shatters the love polygon once one of the characters decides that he can only find meaning in petty jealousy. These are people who, like Renoir said of his characters at the time of The Rules of the Game's 1939 release, "dance on the edge of a volcano." The only problem is that, unlike in Renoir's film, this is a volcano that produces no heat.
Schrader started as a film critic until making the jump in the mid '70s to screenwriting (The Yakuza, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) and then directing with Blue Collar and Hardcore, the latter an acid portrait of a father devastated when he discovers his daughter has become a porn actress. He followed up Hardcore with American Gigolo. These were dynamic depictions of the intersection of sex, money, and morality. But Schrader's always had a clinical streak, and he's shown throughout his career a penchant for having great ideas but not knowing how to dramatize them, for being able to deconstruct movie tropes like a critic without being able to reassemble them for emotional satisfaction. He was as washed up as Lohan when he got around to making The Canyons, and together they've made a film that has us wondering why we ever cared about them in the first place.
Lohan wears her hair up in a bun and equips herself with ridiculous bangle jewelry, as if she's just stepped off the set of Liz &amp; Dick. Deen, an actor who's better at "doing" than speaking, seems to recite his lines phonetically. And Schrader's direction feels like that of a UCLA sophomore with a running bar tab at the Chateau Marmont. It's utterly lifeless.
The moral rot of Spring Breakers is given pungent urgency by all that neon and Skrillex — you get caught up in the girls' crime spree and are even implicated in it yourself, because that film throbs with life. The Canyons doesn't even have a pulse. It's not so bad it's good. It's not destined to be a camp classic. It certainly will do nothing for Lohan's career. It's just bad. All it has going for it is an apt title that applies to the movie itself: a place you fall into until you hit rock bottom.
0/5
What do you think? Tell Christian Blauvelt directly on Twitter @Ctblauvelt and read more of his reviews on Rotten Tomatoes!
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Celebrities get married, divorced, and remarried all the time nowadays, but the great Elizabeth Taylor puts them all to shame. The glamorous actress was infamous for her numerous marriages — eight, to be exact. Movie stars just aren’t what they used to be, huh? Well, now a lucky (and rich) someone will be able to own the starlet’s first wedding dress when it goes up for auction at Christie's in London on June 26.Taylor wore the satin gown at her wedding to Conrad Hilton in 1950 when she was only 18 years old. Designed by Helen Rose, the custom-made dress is a relic of Old Hollywood, embellished with beading and complete with a 15-yard train. Unsurprisingly, the dress has a huge price tag — according to a Christie's press release, it's expected to go for upwards of £30,000 - 50,000 (or $75,000) at auction. For some reason, I doubt that Taylor’s most recent portrayer, Lindsay Lohan, will be putting in a bid.
Follow Mary Oates on Twitter @mary_oates and Hollywood.com @Hollywood_com
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The world of country came together for one of several nights honoring their top talent for the 2013 Academy of Country Music Awards. Hosted by The Voice's Blake Shelton and the two-first-named Luke Bryan, the night belonged to Shelton's wife, Miranda Lambert, and group Little Big Town. Taking home trophies for Female Vocalist of the Year, Song of the Year, and Single Record of the Year, Lambert proved herself the toast of Nashville with her track "Only You."
Other big winners included Eric Church and Jason Aldean, and featured performances by an increasingly-varied roster of artists from across the spectrum — including John Mayer, Stevie Wonder, and Kelly Clarkson. Also came the announcement that the Artist of the Decade award would be renamed to honor the show's former producer, Dick Clark.
Check out the full list of nominees (with winners in bold), below!
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Entertainer of the YearJason AldeanLuke BryanMiranda LambertBlake SheltonTaylor Swift
Male Vocalist of the YearJason AldeanLuke BryanEric ChuchToby KeithBlake Shelton
Female Vocalist of the YearMiranda LambertMartina McBrideKacey MusgravesTaylor SwiftCarrie Underwood
Vocal Duo of the YearBig and RichFlorida Georgia LineLove and TheftSugarlandThompson Square
Vocal Group of the YearThe Band PerryEli Young BandLady AntebellumLittle Big TownZac Brown Band
New Artist of the YearJana KramerBrantley GilbertFlorida Georgia Line
Album of the YearCarrie Underwood, ‘Blown Away’Eric Church, ‘Chief’Taylor Swift, ‘Red’Luke Bryan, ‘Tailgates and Tanlines’Little Big Town, ‘Tornado’
Song of the YearLee Brice, ‘A Woman Like You’Eli Young Band, ‘Even if It Breaks Your Heart’Miranda Lambert, ‘Over You’Eric Church, ‘Springsteen’Hunter Hayes, ‘Wanted’
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Single Record of the YearEli Young Band, ‘Even if It Breaks Your Heart’Miranda Lambert, ‘Over You’Little Big Town, ‘Pontoon’Eric Church, ‘Springsteen’Hunter Hayes, ‘Wanted’
Video of the YearEric Church, ‘Creepin’Hunter Hayes, ‘Wanted’Little Big Town, ‘Tornado’Kacey Musgraves, ‘Merry go round’Taylor Swift, ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’Zac Brown Band, ‘ The Wind’
Vocal Event of a YearKelly Clarkson (Feat. Vince Gill), ‘Don’t Rush’Rascal Flatts (Feat. Natasha Bedingfield) ‘Easy’Kenny Chesney (Feat. Tim McGraw), ‘Feel Like a Rock Star’David Nail (Feat. Sarah Buxton), ‘Let It Rain’ buxtonJason Aldean (Feat. Luke Bryan and Eric Church) ‘The Only Way I Know’
Songwriter of the YearRodney ClawsonDallas DavidsonJosh KearLuke LairdShane McAnally
Yeehaw, y'all.
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[Photo Credit: CBS]
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Everyone knows that Jon Hamm has got a serious bulge in his pants. No, not from his wallet stuffed with all that Mad Men cash. It's in the front. You know, right in the crotch region. OK, to stop beating around the, um, bush about it, Jon Hamm has a big penis. It's huge. You can see it all the time; it just swings around in loose pants when he doesn't wear underwear (which is allegedly often). It creeps up in paparazzi pictures and is supposedly so large that AMC had to Photoshop it out of the press photos. It's almost as famous as Hamm himself is. Just look in the picture above. You can totally see his religion (and, seriously, with a phallic symbol that big, people should be praying to it).
But in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, Hamm has a bone to pick about his ham bone and all the attention it gets. "Most of it's tongue-in-cheek," he says of the attention his package has garnered. "But it is a little rude. It just speaks to a broader freedom that people feel like they have — a prurience."
Hamm might be right. But need we remind him that he is a famous person by trade? The tabloids taking pictures of him is part of the bargain he made when he got famous and agreed to have his visage plastered on the sides of buses. If he didn't like it, maybe he should have stuck to bit parts and regional theater.
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Getting annoyed about people talking about your enormous endowment is also like being bothered when people say you are rich or beautiful. And not being able to accept a compliment is a bit unbecoming. The public wants him to be humble because they are already jealous of his fame, money, and good looks. With this development, they now have one more private shortcoming to measure themselves against. We see Hamm's size as something to be proud of and because he doesn't seem to share our appreciation, it just makes the rest of us hate him a little.
And if we didn't hate him already for just bristling at the attention, he has even more choice quotes to share with Rolling Stone. "They're called 'privates' for a reason," he says. "I'm wearing pants, for f**k's sake. Lay off. I mean, it's not like I'm a f**king lead miner. There are harder jobs in the world. But when people feel the freedom to create Tumblr accounts about my c**k, I feel like that wasn't part of the deal ... But whatever. I guess it's better than being called out for the opposite."
First of all, Hamm may be wearing pants, but he clearly forgot his underwear. As an adult human celebrity who goes out in public knowing that, sometimes, paparazzi are going to be around, shouldn't he, you know, tuck it into a pair of Hanes? He can't help everyone's obsession with his you-know-what, but he can help how he shows it off — or doesn't — to the public. Just like Britney Spears needed to learn to put on panties before getting out of a limo, someone needs to teach Hamm the importance of proper support.
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Kate Upton's boobs have their own Twitter account. Kim Kardashian's butt has entire slideshows devoted to it. Angelina Jolie's leg is a meme onto itself. This is our culture. We objectify celebrities' bodies, especially those of the female variety. Welcome to the club, Hamm. Trying to stop it is like Nicki Minaj protesting coverage of her nip slips or every starlet who borrows a dress trying to get the press to stop talking about her sideboob, under boob, baby bump, bikini body, or any other ridiculous thing we have invented to dissect every inch of her body. I think I speak for all women everwhere when I say, "Tough titty, Jon."
Yes, he is handling this non-troversy all wrong. The actor has made a career out of not only being the wonderful actor on Mad Men (who has been robbed of an Emmy multiple times), but also as the smart, cool, and fun guy you want to party with. He appears on 30 Rock and makes fun of how handsome he is. He hosts Saturday Night Live and slays it as the live action Ambiguously Gay Duo. He stole scenes in Bridesmaids as the world's second most hilarious douchebag. (Sorry, New Girl's Schmidt still takes the cake.) We loved that guy.
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Do you know what that guy doesn't do? He doesn't complain about all the positive attention his nether regions are getting and harp about how famous he is. The guy we love goes on SNL and does a silly skit about "Huge Dongs Anonymous" and plays it for laughs. He diffuses the situation with jokes. Or he gets a $10 million endorsement deal with Fruit of the Loom and turns his blessing into cash in some gently ribbing commercials. The guy we love does not shed tears in Rolling Stone and he certainly doesn't pose for the awful cover shot like he's an extra in Swingers. The man we see on Rolling Stone's cover looks less like Don Draper and more like someone who thinks he's money but is ignorant of the contrary truth.
What happened to the life of the party? What happened to the guy everyone in Hollywood wanted to be in their comedies and everyone in America wanted to come over for a BBQ and grill their weinies? The Rolling Stone flavor of Jon Hamm doesn't sound like the guy we want to have over for beers. He seems serious and awful and like all the other privileged, famous jerks to whom he once provided the antidote. He needs to change directions on this. Seriously, Jon Hamm, don't let the coverage of your penis turn you into a dick.
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo Credit: Lawrence Schwartzwald/Splash News; Rolling Stone]
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You know when you tuck into a big old pile of ice cream or frozen yogurt or a combination cherry and cola flavored Slurpee that you mixed yourself from 7-Eleven, and you are so excited by your sweet treat completely void of any substantive nutritional value whatsoever that you eat it too fast and you get that crippling headache that makes you double over in pain and push on your temples like you are going to force your brain out of the top of your skull? That's how I felt watching last night's Real Shrieking Harpies of Ghost Hill Mansion finale and reunion spectacular. It was just so much so fast and you thought it was going to be delicious but then....OH....TOO MUCH!
That's what happens when you put it all together, I just can't even make my brain process all that fighting. This week I'm just going to ignore the reunion pretty much altogether. (Obviously Brandi, Yolanda, and Lisa won over an overly shrieky Kyle and Kim who cares more about showing up for a Master Cleanse or not then, you know, things that actually matter. Taylor, well, she is just such a non-entity on this show she might as well be a billow of smoke from a candle you just blew out. Lisa did lose points when she accused Kyle of using her and Adrienne so her husband could sell their houses, but otherwise she came off as likeable while the others were like screech monsters.) Yes, that's right, no more reunion talk. I'm just going to address the episode and we'll tuck into the entire reunion next week after the second part. Deal? Deal!
OK, after the interloper Faye Resnick of the Morally Corrupt Resnicks, interrupted Brandi and Yolanda's discussion with Fetch and they walked off, they had another discussion with Fetch about the text that Brandi sent her that said she and her husband should cheat on each other. Brandi explained that it wasn't that serious, and that she gives shitty advice, and Fetch said she wasn't mad so it was no big deal. Yolanda, being the bad ass bitch that she is, told Fetch, "Well, then don't talk about people behind their backs if there's no problem." I love that Yolanda Bananas Foster does not know what show she is on, but that she also calls everyone out on their shit. There is no getting away with social niceties in order to diffuse a situation with YBF.
Then we cut to Taylor for her only scene in the whole show, and she was talking to Linda Thompson, the ex-wife of David Foster Wallace, Bruce Jenner, and a string of other reality television stars all the way back to Ken Roberts, the original host of Candid Camera. Yes, she is that old. (She reconstructs her face once a decade using baby seal fat, paraffin wax, and a secret ingredient she stole from the late Dick Clark's nightstand.) Anyway, Taylor was on her sixth glass of rosé and she slurred to Linda, "Lishin. You're my friend and the reason Imma so mean to Yolanda is because you're my friend. And I love you. I love you soooo much. I want you to be my friend forever. Are you my friend? You're mys friend right? And you'll never hate me? But that's why I wanted to hates Yolanda, s'because you hate her and it was soooo mean what she did. No. Nooooo. Really. It was mean. It was awful. And I love you. You're my friend. Are you my friend? Is it OK for me to like Yolanda? I'll always love you more, because you're my friend." It was like the worst case of beer tears outside of a Syracuse sorority house.
Cut to the couch where all the ladies were sitting and they saw, out of the corner of their eyes, that Lisa was talking to the Morally Corrupt Faye Resnick. They all get up and clucked on over, like a bunch of chickens spotting specks of blood, and they all got their peckers out and were ready to peck peck peck until someone was lying on the marble floor in a heap of gored feathers, and someone else was the one true victor. That is what happens here. And at the center of the pecking, justifiably, was Faye Resnick.
If I haven't said this before, I will say this now: Faye Resnick is the worst. She is worse than paper cuts, cracked iPhone screens, opening the box of donuts in the office kitchen to discover someone has taken the last one and not thrown the box away, and Chernobyl. That is how bad she is. Faye was telling Lisa, at her own party, that she thought Lisa used Brandi to fight her battles. Faye was all, "I really like you Lisa and I don't want to fight at your own party, but you are awful and you use Brandi to start shit." And she said it all in this tone that suggested, "I am blameless, it's you that's the problem."
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Lisa rebutted by saying that Faye was Kyle's mouthpiece. Then everyone went back and forth saying who was who's mouthpiece, and how none of them needed mouthpieces because they are mixed martial arts fighters and they are hard core. They don't wear pads and gloves and they do not need mouthpieces. But seriously, who argues about "mouthpieces?" Who even has such a thing? Does this even exist in real life? Does this even exist in reality life? I don't think so. All of these women will speak their own minds much to their detriment, that is what got them on the show in the first place. Why would they need someone else to go around saying the things that they think? Why would they want someone else to create the drama when it's the drama that keeps them on the show in the first place? Without drama there is no camera time, and, much like America runs on Dunkin', these ladies' ego-engines run on camera time.
Everyone turned on Faye and told her that she was awful and should stay out of it, that she had nothing to do with Brandi's argument with Adrienne or Fetch or Kyle or Kim. Wow, everyone is always fighting with Brandi, huh. She is the lynchpin to this whole little grenade of dissatisfaction. But she has never done anything directly to Faye so her reaction was just completely out of line. Then Faye said that she is bored with this whole argument, the one that she started in the first place out of maliciousness, and now that she was losing it it bored her. Faye had no stats or examples to back up her stance, only her misjiggered opinion, and when that failed, all she had left was feigned boredom.
Kyle came over and was like, "Don't fight. Everyone get along. I'm not going to take a side," and I think that was even worse than taking a side. That makes everyone hate you, Kyle. She thinks that everyone will be happy with her if she stays neutral but it just exasperates everyone. Your job here is to make alliances and attack the other side and if you don't do that, then every side is going to hate you. Stop trying to do that child actor thing where you please everyone all the time forever.
Oh, speaking of which, while there was this whole "Brandi is evil, no Faye is evil" thing happening (honestly, I can't even parse this fight except to say that Faye is the worst and, while Brandi is not blameless, she was being unjustly attacked in this instance) we had to deal with Kim. Kim wanted Kyle, and by extension the audience, all of us, to remember her pain. Kim was upset that Kyle was defending Adrienne against Brandi when Brandi hurt Kim, too. Kim just got shrill and repetitive like the "plinkety plinkety plink te plink te plink te plink te plink plink" of the ice cream truck in the summer, getting ever faster and louder as it approaches up the street. "Remember what she did to me, Kyle! Be upset for me!"
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Kim, we will never forget your pain. Your pain is right there in your forehead creases and your mussy hair. It is right there in your new nose and the way that your eyes droop toward the floor when you think no one is looking. Your pain is everywhere, and it will never, ever go away. But need we remind Kim that when Brandi said that Kim smokes crystal meth in the bathroom, which is only a hair away from being true, it was after Kim had hid her crutches and she and her sister had terrorized this woman they didn't know at a house party in an echoing mansion? She caused the pain that she brought on herself.
This is the problem with all of these housewives fights. This is the problem with this fight in particular, a circling around once again like the constellations coming into yet another unfortunate alignment. There is no synthesis with these ladies, only repetition. They say they get over things, they say they move past it and change, but they never do. It's the same three petty grumbles echoed back and forth so many times that they just grow and grow in volume until they cause an avalanche. There is no healing here, only the picking of scabs until it gets infected and spreads to the blood and then the whole organism dies.
After this Lisa Vanderpump renewed her vows and it was sweet and wonderful that she is in so much love with her husband, but it was also all so sad. It's so sad as relief to what just happened, all the venom and hate spewed by these hissing monsters when they're all capable of such love. Lisa and Ken are capable of being sweet and charming and self-effacing and funny and so, so in love that it is just palpable. It is the only real thing on this whole reality enterprise and when they dance you think of that day thirty years ago with Lisa in a giant hat and a Lady Di wedding dress and a completely different face ,and it had only been three months since they met and everyone scoffed as she shuffled down the aisle in a million ruffles but now look at where they are today, standing together at the eye of this shit storm. That is love. That is the future.
Oh, I totally forgot the part where Adrienne, Queen of the Maloofs (a race of mole people that live beneath the mountain) arrived (OK, I didn't but I wanted to end with her). This was the last thing that Adrienne would ever do and, well, she is officially in contention with Faye Resnick for the title of The Worst. It was the day that Adrienne announced that she and her husband, Paullo the Chimp, were getting a separation and still, still she showed up at this party. Like Yolanda says, this is the day you stay home. This is the day you pull your children close to you and inhale the intoxicating scent of their warm hair. This is not the day you go to a party with no makeup on and collapse into a heap of sobs on a stranger's couch. That is not what you do.
Adrienne played it all wrong. She came in and just fell onto the first woman who would give her any attention, and they all clustered with their hardened Kleenex from the bottom of their clutches and tried to pat the moisture off of Adrienne's fake eyelashes. She didn't even try to say hi to Lisa, who was hosting the party, whose house she was in. She said, "I saw Lisa see me, she could come over and comfort me and tell me how sorry she is." I am sorry, but that is not the way things work. First of all, it's hard hosting a party and I'm sure Lisa was running around with plenty to do. Also, it was Lisa's house. You should go over and say, "Sorry I can't stay, but I'm sure you understand," and let Lisa utter a kind word and then go back to the celebration of her marriage.
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No. That is not what Adrienne did. She slinked out the back with all the attention on her, not letting anyone deflect the spotlight of her grief for even a second. "Tell Lisa that I'm sorry I couldn't stay and I hope she has a great time, I have to get back to my children" she told Kyle. First of all, "get back to" your children? You shouldn't have left them in the first place! Second of all, what? No, Adrienne, Kyle will not say hi to Lisa for you. Lisa is 20 feet away. You are in her house. You march your stupid face with the consistency of a spackel on a wall over to Lisa and you tell her your damn self like a civilized person who lives in the world, not leave like a crazy ego monster.
That was the night that Adrienne tottered back to her mountain, her big nasty ego mountain that is full of rocky crags, and when she got there, the mole people were waiting. They were all haunched over and yellow with their slitty little eyes hardly adjusting to the dusk, but they could still see here. She had abandoned them for the last time. She had gotten far too big for her own good, forgetting about her people and only involved with herself. "Go back to your holes!" she bellowed, wiping a stray tear from her face. They all flinched, so used to obeying her every word, but for the first time none of them moved. "Go back to the mountain! Get back in the mountain. Your queen demands it!" She hollered and yet, still, they did not move. "Go back! Go back!" and with that they began to lurch for her. "Go BACK!" she tried once more but it was too late, they began to run for her, their arms and feet taking turns resting on the ground as she started to run in the other direction and they all pounced, like a swarm of minnows devouring a shark she disappeared within their mass and all you could hear was the bloody squelching noises and a muffled scream.
Queen Adrienne of the Maloofs was dead, consumed by her own vanity, destroyed by what she thought made her powerful. And that is why she was not at the reunion. That is why she will never be heard from again, because she dared to be the worst kind of rich person. Because she forgot about the little people. Andy Cohen told us that her last act as a Housewife was not showing up to the reunion but that was not her final act. Her final act was walking out on Lisa, it was leaving someone else's party with all the attention on her. It was screaming in the face of her people even as they thought to murder her. That is the last choice she made. That is the last thing she will ever do. The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
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The former Happy Days star, Wolf and network CBS President Les Moonves will be celebrated at a special ceremony in Los Angeles on 11 March (13) for their contributions to the small screen.
Proceeds from the 22nd annual event will be donated to the Archive of American Television.
CEO Bruce Rosenblum tells the Hollywood Reporter, "Each of this year's Hall of Fame inductees is incredibly deserving of this honour and is truly a legend of our industry. This will be a spectacular evening, rich with stories and reminiscing."